Music: Allman Brothers' guitarist Scott Sharrard to play the blues in Plymouth

By Chad Berndtson/For The Patriot Ledger

Thursday

Sep 13, 2018 at 12:34 PM

Scott Sharrard was already well into a remarkable career by the time he met the late Gregg Allman, legendary vocalist from the Allman Brothers Band, in 2008.

Growing up in the Midwest, Sharrard – a sharp and highly regarded guitarist, singer, songwriter and bandleader – had played with legends of blues, jazz and R&B before he was 20, sitting in with the likes of Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Mel Rhyne and Buddy Miles, and meeting his heroes at clubs in Milwaukee and Chicago before he could legally drive.

He brought plenty of chops and moxie to an audition for Allman’s solo band in 2008 – a fateful sit-in with the Allman Brothers at a show in New Jersey – that he got the job with Gregg and soon became musical director of the Gregg Allman Band for the better part of a decade, right up through its namesake’s death in 2017.

“He was a big supporter of my singing and writing in addition to my guitar playing, and working with him for the last decade also opened up a lot of doors for me,” said Sharrard, who brings his crackling trio to Plymouth’s Spire Center for the Arts on September 21.

Sharrard has a new album, “Saving Grace,” his fifth. On it he’s joined by a slew of decorated names – everyone from Taj Mahal and Bernard Purdie to members of legendary Muscle Shoals rhythm section The Swampers appears. Half of the album also features the Memphis-based Hi Records rhythm section, famed for their work on records by Al Green, Ann Peebles and countless others.

“Saving Grace,” Sharrard notes, “is a summation of everything I’ve done in the last 20 years.” It casts a wide net while sounding unmistakably Sharrard, a mix of his many influences. He yields the mic only once – to Taj Mahal – for “Everything a Good Man Needs,” which was a leftover from Gregg Allman’s final album “Southern Blood” (2017) and which is served here as a tribute – a “funky, lowdown blues” as Sharrard describes it.

Sharrard’s band is the tightest it’s ever been. The guitarist brought aboard bassist Brett Bass and drummer Eric Kalb to form a power trio, though they often expand with keys and horn players when friends are in town.

Sharrard himself is an affable frontman, though he insists – as he learned firsthand from an old friend – the music itself has to speak loudest.

"Gregg had a spirit about him, and I’m sure anyone who heard his records and especially saw him live knows what I’m talking about it. That was real – he never went onstage and posed. He never got the crowd riled up by jumping around or doing anything silly – he’d reel you in with his music,” Sharrard said. “So that’s what we try to do. I remember getting that from him the first time I ever saw the Allman Brothers Band when I was a kid – it was like, wow, these guys are musicians. They’re not up there to pose. So we try to dig as deep as we can, and tell a story with music.”